The Watchers by Stephen Alford Page A

upholders.’ Out of his pocket the priest drew a piece of paper containing the names of Elizabeth’s privy councillors. He called the paper ‘a bead-roll’, a list of people to be specially prayed for. This was sharp irony. These heretics, he said, would soon be held to account for their crimes. They did not know ‘what is providing for them, and I hope shall not know, till it fall upon them’.
    Munday gave the priest to whom he spoke in the garden sinister anonymity. With the name of Robert Persons, however, he was much freer, for by the time Munday wrote up his story for the London printing presses Persons, educated at Oxford and ordained a priest of the Society of Jesus – a Jesuit – in July 1578, was one of the most able adversaries of Elizabeth’s rule and a wanted man in England. He was about thirty-two years old when Munday met him, able, confident, even charismatic. Munday captured something of his character. He described how Persons had often sat on a chair in the middle of the student body, ‘when he would open unto us, in what miserable and lamentable estate our country of England stood’. Persons even prayed ‘for that gracious and thrice-blessed queen’ – Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth’s rival, ‘now held down by that Jezebel’s oppression’.
    Munday made it clear that the English College was poisoned by treason. When he fell seriously ill, his fellow students came to sit by his bedside and made what Munday called ‘horrible speeches’ against their prince and country. One of the scholars even said to Anthony: ‘You may be happy, if God take you out of this world here: then shall you never see the bloody ruin of your own country.’ Once he had recovered from his sickness, Munday went out one day to the place of Saint Peter’s martyrdom with two other scholars. As usual they talked about England. One of them said: ‘While two or three persons be alive, we may stand in doubt of our matter in England.’ ‘Who be they?’ Munday asked. Out of delicacy to his readers he gave initials only, but they were three of Elizabeth’s leading advisers, of whom two were Lord Burghley, the queen’s lord treasurer, and Sir Francis Walsingham, her secretary. ‘Oh,’ Munday’s companion continued, ‘had I the hearts of these in my purse, and their heads in the Pope’sHoliness’ hands: I would not doubt but ere long, we should all merrily journey homeward.’
    Yet Anthony Munday found companionship in Rome as well as treason. Luke Kirby, a priest born in Yorkshire, visited Munday when he was sick, and they became friends. Kirby was about thirty-one years old and a former student of Louvain. We know, thanks to another English spy in Rome, that he had brown hair and a short beard, that his teeth were slightly crooked, and that he spoke with a mild stammer. Munday made other friends too and enjoyed for the first time in his life the rhythm of life in a community of students. Here Munday’s gift for writing great narrative was at its best, his ear for dialogue, his nose for scandal. He turned upon the English College those weapons he possessed: a sharp eye, a quick intelligence and a lively pen.
    There is an easy descriptive quality to Munday’s account of the daily lives of the college’s students in their ‘house both large and fair’. Four or six scholars shared a chamber, and each scholar had a bed made up of two small trestles with four or five boards and a quilted mattress. The porter rang a bell first thing in the morning, at which the students turned up their beds. A second bell marked prayers, and the scholars spent half an hour on their knees in private devotion. A third bell was the signal for silent study, each scholar reading at his desk. After this the students went from their chambers to the refectory for a breakfast of one glass of wine and a quarter of a